I'm not really a big fan of war movies, but this is quite something. I'm becoming a huge fan of George C Scott - in the last little while I've seen him in "The Hustler", "Anatomy of a Murder" and now "Patton" and every performance has been outstanding.

For some good early Scott work, you might enjoy "Petulia" with Julie Christie. I know I enjoyed it. Not a great work but there's some good acting. And it has some Janis Joplin and Greatful Dead cameos.

_________________________If you aren't seeing Heaven while you dream, you're doing something wrong.Dreams allow escape from the passage of Time.The ultimate activity is the Dream.

Last night I watched one of those rare beasts - a film so bad that it bordered on the brilliant called 'Iron Sky'.

In this masterpiece, a colony of Nazis, on the moon since 1945, are planning an invasion of Earth. The world's people look toward the US President (a Sarah Palin look-alike) for leadership... I shall say no more but can recommend it as a serious spoof (is there such a thing?) that I found quite funny and immensely entertaining!

"Seven Years in Tibet" - Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, B.D. Wong, Mako, Danny Denzongpa, Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk, Lhakpa TsamchoeThe film was enjoyable and had beautiful scenic vistas (mountains from all around the world)except for when Pitt let out his german version of an accent. Why? The character wasn't speaking English. A fair telling of the Chinese takeover of Tibet in the 40s.

Posted watched movies in the thread as of 12/11/12 in order of posting. (Discussion posts not recorded.) A location can be approximated by the 33 postings. (On average, thirty-three titles per page) Sorry, there might not be quotemarks, italics or underlining employed and the single apostrophes must be included in copies then deleted and switched to quotes so I didn't change them either. Has anyone noticed using those single quote marks makes going to Wiki's search difficult because they aren't recognized or ignored?

Going over bonus material of the 65th Anniversary DVD of "The Adventures of Robin Hood", I came across this wonderful trivial tidbit:The horse ridden by Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland) on her entrance in the caravan through Sherwood Forest was a Palomino that would later be owned by Roy Rogers and then known as Trigger!From the Legacy paragraph in the Wikipedia entry for the film:"Trigger (then named Golden Cloud) was the horse ridden by Olivia de Havilland in the film. Roy Rogers admired the horse so much that he bought Trigger to use in his own films. This eventually made Trigger one of the most famous animals in show business."

Another clip from the bonus shows a scene shot later - to fill exposition and sync it with the visual tale - required Flynn and Patric Knowles (Will Scarlet) to enter Sherwood in the opening scenes. The clip was in the bonus material to point out that the scene was shot in a different location (Warner Ranch) than all the other filming. But the scene clearly shows that Knowles is riding the Palomino later ridden by de Havilland. The scene ends with the two horses, side by side, jumping synchronously over a fallen log which represented the edge of the forest. Seems Trigger was ridden by both de Havilland and Knowles in the film. There are two or three other scenes showing a Palomino being ridden by other horsemen in various scenes. My final review of the film felt like a Where's Waldo exercise looking for that Golden Cloud to flash on the screen.

Edited by mehaul (Fri Dec 14 201211:36 PM)

_________________________If you aren't seeing Heaven while you dream, you're doing something wrong.Dreams allow escape from the passage of Time.The ultimate activity is the Dream.

Highly sentimental but enjoyable John Ford/John Wayne western about three bad guys being chased by a posse across the desert who make a promise to a dying woman that they will care for her newborn. Great visuals - watch the smoke and the dust.

Last night I saw “Fatal Reunion.” I first saw it a year ago—then, over the summer, I saw a different [older, I think] version. That day in summer, I didn’t even watch the rest—but the one last night was the version I liked, so I watched to the end.

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(1) Young I may be, but even young people are entitled to their opinions.(2)Attempting to silence me doesn't hurt me, but the silencer.(3) I must remain true to myself.

And yesterday I saw "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Now I remember why it's my favorite Star Trek movie; it's the most like the original series, and everybody still looks likes themselves (and Shatner is still handsome). And it is more like what sci-fi used to be; not action-adventure-fantasy in space but really science fiction.

Tonight I'm watching a strange little movie from the 1940s called "Flight From Destiny". A dying professor plots the murder of a woman who is ruining his friends' marriage, because of his theory of socially necessary murder.

Edited by gracious1 (Wed Dec 12 201206:27 PM)

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Speak less than you know; have more than you show.

"Chico and Rita" ... one of those I expected to be mostly indifferent about, but got happily rewarded when I completely enjoyed it. And ended up watching it twice! Insanely fine music and incredible animation, too.

_________________________
"The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful." ... H. L. Mencken

Story of veterans returning from the war and not finding things the way they expected. Made in 1946, it's not very modern in style, but very modern indeed in the issues it deals with. Doesn't pull any punches - I really liked this movie.

I wasn't too impressed, to be honest. The first forty minutes or so really dragged, for one thing, and I kept being distracted and pulled out of the moment by stupid little stuff. As an example, hours (days?) after the famous pea soup scene, Regan's face and bedding is still stained and I'm thinking "You just leave the child up there in her own filth, and we're supposed to think of you as a loving and concerned mother? Is she wearing diapers?" which is not, I think, what I was supposed to be thinking about just then. Not the masterpiece of its genre I was led to expect.

I've only just read this review and it's fabulous & hilarious. All reviews should be from this point of view.

Over the weekend, saw two films which I’d watched before, but missed the beginning or end (or both). First: “Taken From Me,” about a woman whose ex-husband gets her permission to take their son on vacation to Florida, when his real plans are to abduct the boy and take him to another country, then make all sorts of claims about what an unfit mother she is. The second movie was “The Elizabeth Smart Story,” which is the one where I missed the beginning (and, subsequently, lost interest). That’s why I made sure to watch it closely this time). I was reminded, the first time I watched, of a book I had read in which the villain said something similar (if not the exact line). Both films, I found, were pretty easy for me to follow the story line,and the portrayal of emotion was very realistic, not overly done.

_________________________
(1) Young I may be, but even young people are entitled to their opinions.(2)Attempting to silence me doesn't hurt me, but the silencer.(3) I must remain true to myself.

"Hollow Man" (2000) with Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue and Josh Brolin. The story sets the exposition of how a modern day invisible man is made and some bit of a story of the troubles it brings him. Done by Paul Verhoeven, master of modern cinematic techniques, there are few scenes without digital participation. The scenes of becoming in- and visible are quite stunning.

"Hollow Man 2" (2006) with Christian Slater, Peter Facinelli, Laura Regan is the direct to DVD sequel produced by Verhoeven. Once he figured out where costly effects were not required to tell the invisible man story, he put this together. It is a good story, with just enough visual effects added to convince the viewer of the activities of the unseen.

Also beginning in 2000 there was a Sci-Fi Channel series called "The Invisible Man" which ran for two seasons that relied on the same digital image manipulations (sans the gory transition phases) as the first Hollow Man. It was an amusing look at what a government agent may encounter using his abilities. In this vehicle it was played that the government saw not much advantage to the ability and relegated the operation to a backwater agency.

_________________________If you aren't seeing Heaven while you dream, you're doing something wrong.Dreams allow escape from the passage of Time.The ultimate activity is the Dream.

Wow. When Burt Lancaster plays a bad guy, he's bad all right. Tony Curtis is so slimy he glitters. This is a great movie, full of wonderful little touches. Great dialogue, slick wet city streets, all that texture that you only get with black and white. And a couple of thoroughly nasty human beings.

Whoops ... there went 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back . The music was a rather fun trip down memory lane and recalling that we really DID walk around with that much hair on our heads back then was worth a giggle, but the script was painfully bad and the love story just didn't feel right, at least not to me. And I refer to the love story between the two young singers, not the one between Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin (?). The latter coupling didn't feel right either, of course, but that was because they were both so annoying. It's pretty telling, and kinda scary, when the following statement sums up a movie being watched at my house: Tom Cruise was the best thing in it?! Ugh.

_________________________
"The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful." ... H. L. Mencken

lol! (But surely the inclusion of Russell Brand was a tell-tale sign that it would be bad?)

"Still of the Night"

Oh, this film is so tantalising! One moment brilliant and intriguing, the next bizarrely boring and switch-offable. It's a psychological thriller, but really it's like a pale version of a Hitchcock film. It should have been a classic but something was wrong and I cannot decide what.

Perhaps it was Roy Scheider - he seemed a bit wooden. & The plot was a bit confused. It reminded me of a "choose your own adventure" story in that it was full of twists (great) but I felt that not all the twists and turns linked up with each other. Meryl Streep was her usual Meryl Streepness of good, even if a bit hammy at times.

All that said, I enjoyed it! Worth watching if there's nothing else on.

From wiki:

"---When Streep appeared on the Bravo talk show, "Watch What Happens Live," in August, 2012, host Andy Cohen asked her to “Name one bad film that you have made.” Streep replied, “Still of the Night.” “What was that about?” asked Cohen. Streep replied, “Never mind.”---"

Of course, if you are the fabulous Meryl Streep a "bad" film might be what anyone else would call an okay one.

Incidentally, following on from Mehaul's observation that Joe E Brown and William H Macy were separated at birth, Roy Scheider was born to play Groucho Marx!